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Monday, February 19, 2007

Gold at the end of the rainbow

Have you heard the old saying "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow"? Do you think that we can take this literally? Most of you will say no.

However, according to my mother there is some truth in this saying.

When my mum was just a little girl, she was quite close with her grandmother. The grounds of their house was quite big with big trees and a pond.

Every time it rained, there would be a small rainbow and when viewed from the house, it seemed like one end of the rainbow fell somewhere near the pond.

One day my great grandmother decided to follow a hunch. She took my mother along and dug up the place near where they usually saw the rainbow. She was an avid gardener an quite strong. After a few hours and a few feet near the pond and at the bottom of a huge tree, they hit something. It was a metal lined wooden box and it was full of coins. They were from different era, some as old as a hundred years old and some as recent as the 1940s.

The hoard included silver and gold coins. My great grandmother promptly converted them to jewelery by melting them. She didn't know but they would probably would have cost more if sold in their original form to coin collectors.

My mother, as her partner got half of the treasure and she still has a bag full of it left - but sadly no silver or gold ones.

I suddenly recalled my mom's story when I came across a coin and currency auction catalog.

They would probably cost much more now. You must remember that this happened almost 50 years ago, when my mother was still a kid. Looking around the catalog some of the coins from the Victorian era can cost hundred of pounds.